Sanford Speaks Out is the latest blog sensation written, edited and produced by Sanford D. Horn, a writer and educator. Sanford will write about issues of the day covering a myriad subjects: politics, education, culture, sports, religion and even food.

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Because of his clear inability to be honest before a
Congressional committee do I feel compelled to say liar, liar, pantalones en
fuego to hopefully soon to be former Attorney General Eric Holder.

This is the same Eric Holder, who, as Deputy Attorney
General during the Clinton administration interceded to help secure the pardon
of Marc Rich. Rich “stood accused of
racketeering, defrauding the Treasury out of tens of millions of dollars, and
trading with our nation’s enemies–including Iran, which Rich supplied with
desperately needed funds while Khomeini’s embargoed regime held American
hostages.” (McCarthy, A.C., National
Review Online, January 21, 2009)

As Deputy AG, Holder
claimed to not be familiar with who Rich was or the crux of the case against
him. Ignorance was his Holder’s salvation when questioned in 2001 before the
Senate Judiciary Committee. Yet it was later proven that not only did Holder
know who Rich was, but had the occasion to sue a company controlled by Rich
while Holder served as US Attorney for DC as a Clinton appointee.

This is the
same Eric Holder, who, as AG has been embroiled in the Fast and Furious
scandal. Again, Holder feigned ignorance before the House Judiciary Committee
claiming not to know anything about the gun walking operation that allowed
American firearms into the hands of so-called intermediaries for the purpose
tracking them back to Mexican drug cartels.

Fast and
Furious was a botched effort that saw precious few of the firearms returned to
American hands. So badly gone awry was Fast and Furious that United States Border
Patrol Agent Brian Terry was slaughtered in December 2010 and Holder became the
first sitting cabinet member charged with Contempt of Congress. There has been
no justice for the Terry family.

Enough is
enough.

Now Holder has
lied to the House Judiciary Committee about, once again, his ignorance. This
time in a most egregious abuse of power – spying on members of the press and
violating their right of privacy, and dispelling the notion of a free press
being able to perform its duties in the independent manner for which they are
tasked, and guaranteed via the First Amendment of the United States Constitution,
a document with which Holder ought to be familiar.

Holder claimed
on May 15 he knew nothing of the search warrants/subpoenas sought to
investigate several Associated Press employees as well as Fox News’ reporter James
Rosen and an FNC producer. Yet, it has since been unearthed that Holder himself
pursued said warrants/subpoenas for e-mails and telephone records, initially being
rejected by two judges before a third acquiesced. Such high level
investigations require the signature of the Attorney General – in this case,
Eric Holder.

Not only were
the privacy rights of Rosen et. al. violated, so too was their right of due
process by not having been notified prior to such an investigation.

When asked
about potential charges of perjury against Holder, US Rep. James Sensenbrenner
(R-WI), a 35-year veteran of both Congress and the Judiciary Committee said, “absolutely.”

Both
Sensenbrenner and Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) said that
to investigate Rosen for a possible violation of the 1917 Espionage Act for
doing his job is an outright assault of the First Amendment freedom of the
press.

Yet, right
there to politicize this entire scandal was US Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) who
said that Holder did not mislead the committee. But it was another Democrat, US
Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) who asked Holder the damning question regarding his knowledge
of the Rosen investigation prior to it becoming public.

There is the
FBI affidavit signed by Holder, followed by his denial – hotter than the
ubiquitous smoking gun.

Holder has
since called this entire controversy a “teaching moment,” to which
Sensenbrenner replied, “Because he got caught.”

Now, the fox
has been assigned to guard the henhouse – meaning Holder is tasked with
investigating the Justice Department – meaning himself. Yep, the Keystone Kops
of the Obama Administration.

When The Huffington Post and George
Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, both left of center
entities call for Obama to fire Holder; when David Axelrod, Obama’s former
senior advisor publicly calls for Holder’s ousting; when The Washington Post and The
New York Times have lost faith in the Justice Department, the handwriting
is on the wall.

Attorney
General Eric Holder either lied to a Congressional committee and the American
people or he simply is not in control of the Justice Department demonstrating
abject incompetence. Either way Holder must be fired by Obama and then charged
with perjury and obstruction of justice for hindering a Congressional
investigation.

Friday, May 24, 2013

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment
of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom
of speech or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble,
and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” – First Amendment;
United States Constitution

Three Strikes and Out – Obama’s Tickets to Impeachment

Commentary by Sanford D. Horn

May 24, 2013

Those are not just mere words found on some old decaying
piece of parchment. Those are the words that have great, unbending meaning –
deeply rooted in the history of the United States of America – then considered
a grand experiment in republican democracy. With little exception, a successful
experiment that continues to pay hefty dividends in these United States, but
also serving as a beacon for those nations and peoples seeking to emulate our
grand designs given us by the likes of John Adams, Ben Franklin, Alexander
Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Mason, Thomas Paine, and George
Washington.

And make no mistake, when the First Amendment fails, the
Second Amendment takes over.

And let Watergate remind Barack Obama and his
administration that no man is above the law. Obama’s righteous indignation,
feigned that it is, cannot shroud the facts that this administration is up to
its tuchus in a triumvirate of scandals, each smelling worse than the one
before it.

So often we quote the likes of Jefferson, Franklin,
Mason, and Madison who lived during those early days of the republic not
knowing whether it would survive beyond the drying of the ink on the Constitution,
let alone the 237 years we currently celebrate. Perhaps it is due to the
tenuousness of the era in which they lived did their words resonate so strongly
as to be recalled today.

“A government big enough to give you everything you want,
is big enough to take away everything you have.” – Thomas Jefferson

Jefferson’s wisdom and brilliance transcend time and
history. Yet, even Jefferson might not imagine the size and scope of the
federal government growing so out of control that more and more people, particularly
the younger generations, expect, nay, demand that government provide for them
from womb to tomb. Personal responsibility is non-existent. Taxes are used to
pay for the lives of the lazy, the obstreperous, and the illegal.

Yet simultaneously, this government, so large and out of
control, can hardly keep track of its own activities as the likes of Steven
Miller, Lois Lerner, Doug Shulman, Sara Hall Ingram and a cast of many more
unknowns continue to deny, claim the Fifth Amendment, pass the buck and
otherwise obfuscate the issues in the myriad scandals sure to bring down any
other administration. But not the Obama administration, for even after the
media is caught up in the quagmire, they are still fawning sycophants giving
their blinding support for this man who should be facing impeachment charges
for high crimes and misdemeanors making Richard M. Nixon look like a Boy Scout.
To be fair, both the New York Times and
The Washington Post have recently
begun to castigate the administration.

The slaughter of four Americans in Benghazi, the Internal
Revenue Service’s unbalanced scrutiny into conservative organizations’ non-profit
and/or tax-exempt status, and the Justice Department’s secretly rooting through
the phone records of members of the media are categorically worse than Nixon’s
Watergate and Warren Harding’s Teapot Dome scandals.

Under Obama there has been the abuse of power, political
corruption, arrogance, and stupidity rising to new levels of stench, especially
coming from the administration that claimed from day one it would be the most
transparent administration in American history. And before anyone starts clamoring
that other administrations have been guilty of their own share of dalliances with
the shady side of the law, I categorically aver that two wrongs do not a right
make. It’s time for Obama to put on his big boy pants (not his mom jeans) and
take ownership of his administration’s corrupt and illegal practices.

When Harry Truman was president, the sign on his desk in
the Oval Office read “The buck stops here.” President Truman took
responsibility for the actions, or inactions of his administration.

Fast forward 60 years after Truman’s departure from the
White House to the current occupant, Barack Obama and his scandal laden
administration. With Obama, the buck stops anywhere but with him – as the pile
under the bus grows on an almost daily basis.

In Benghazi, Libya, four members of the diplomatic
mission, Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, Navy SEALS Glen Doherty and Tyrone
Woods, along with information officer Sean Smith were slaughtered by Islamic
militant terrorists on September 11, 2012.

First under the bus was US Ambassador to the United
Nations Susan Rice, who was tasked with appearing on five Sunday talk shows regaling
all who would listen that the attack was not terrorist related, but an
impromptu riot against an anti-Muslim video. That story had the shelf life of
milk outdoors on the Equator as the video was nothing but a façade.

“No matter how imperfect things are, if you’ve got a free
press everything is correctable, and without it everything is concealable.” –
Tom Stoppard from his play Night and Day.

As in Watergate, the cover up was worse than the truth.
The truth is that more security was requested, begged for even, but was never
approved by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She subsequently suffered
a convenient concussion and then had the gall to shout during her testimony, “What
difference, at this point does it matter,” regarding the actual circumstances
behind the death of four Americans. Tell that to their families, who more than
eight months later are still demanding answers, and rightfully so. Tell that also
to Mark Basseley Youssef, a.k.a. Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the filmmaker still
in an American prison for a film that was not the root cause of the Benghazi
terrorist attacks.

But there was Obama, in front of the cameras telling the
American people the Benghazi attacks were not terrorist attacks but motivated
by a film never seen by the terrorists – a word Obama opted not to use for
days. How could security be so lax and porous on September 11 of all days?

While the Benghazi scandal still reverberates around the
ether, the country has been shaken to its core as privacy rights and a free
press have been challenged by the Obama administration.

“The freedom of the press is one of the great bulwarks of
liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic governments.” – George Mason;
Virginia Declaration of Rights, 1776

So bereft of scruples, the Obama administration has taken
to spying on the media – the very press that carried his water throughout two
presidential campaigns and elections to get him to the White House and keep him
there, when having served as a back bencher in the Illinois State Senate and
then as a US Senator for 147 days before announcing his intentions of “fundamentally
transforming the United States of America.”

Under the guise of national security and the alleged
leadership of hopefully soon to be former Attorney General Eric Holder, the
Justice Department, unbeknownst to its victims, secured the phone records and
e-mails of not just members of the Associated Press, but Fox News, family of members
of the press, and potentially other media outlets yet to be discovered.

Naturally, Holder has denied any involvement in this
scandal, yet defended his department’s secret gathering of the phone records
claiming there was “a grave national security leak.” If such a leak occurred and
if such a potential national security issue existed, wouldn’t it behoove the AG
to be in the loop on such investigative activities? Holder can’t have it both
ways.

If there was a breach in national security and Holder was
unaware of it, he should be out and whoever unearthed such a breach should have
his post. If not, as is suspected, the Justice Department is guilty of
violating policy and procedure and possibly countless laws. When the government
seeks phone and e-mail records, it notifies the organizations first, even
secures subpoenas, not engage in cloak and dagger nonsense.

Holder and his Justice Department are more and more
culpable with the unearthing of the fact that Holder himself authorized the
investigation into Fox News reporter James Rosen’s e-mail – an investigation
that stretched to include that of Rosen’s parents as well. Yet the denials
continue. Even the liberal site Huffington Post has called for Holder’s ousting
as the Attorney General.

In order to capably do its job, the notion of a free
press should be sacrosanct. Having worked as a reporter for a number of years,
I fully understand and respect the notion of deep background, keeping pertinent
information out of a story when an ongoing investigation was the subject, as
well as what off the record means. Even in this day and age of the biased
media, a free press remains a cornerstone of the American democratic-republic.

The American public needs more than just a modicum of
confidence that the media is working freely, independently, and unfettered,
even as biased as it is. Potential reliable sources need to feel protected or
unreliable sources will destroy the state of the media. News is factual and
must remain so – in spite of too many so-called reporters attempting to be the
next Woodward or Bernstein by injecting themselves into the news and opining
where is does not belong. Separate fact from fiction from opinion.

This scandal will not, nor should not, go quietly into
this good night.

“Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and
that cannot be limited without being lost.” –Thomas Jefferson, 1789

People’s liberty is also at stake when a behemoth government
organization, the IRS, recently charged with running Obamacare and needing to
hire 16,000 new agents to ensure it is being run properly, is also mired neck
high in a scandal.

Seems the IRS zealously audited and investigated an
enormously disproportionate number of conservative organizations with TEA
Party, liberty, freedom, other patriotic names as well as pro-Israel and
conservative Jewish organizations. Their 501(c)(3) status was held up for
months or downright denied unilaterally without explanation.

This harassment had been taking place since before the
2012 presidential campaign. These audits targeted organizations having a beef
with Obama or seen to run contrary to Obama’s beliefs or plans for winning reelection
and governing thereafter. Demands should be made for all the pertinent e-mail
communications just as the Nixon tapes had been subpoenaed during the Watergate
investigations.

Law abiding American citizens and organizations have the
Constitutional right to freely associate, freely worship, and freely contribute
to the candidates of their choosing without being harassed by the IRS or any
other government agency. The IRS does not have the right to ask members of an
organization to whom they contribute their money, how they pray, or even what
prayers they recite. This scurrilous behavior by the IRS and the Obama
administration at-large is tantamount to George Orwell’s 1984 becoming reality.

Pro-life organizations were delayed in achieving their
tax-exempt status or denied outright, while Planned Parenthood has enjoyed such
status for years. Conservative, patriotic, and pro-Israel organizations were
placed under a microscope so intrusive it made a prostate exam seem like a day
at the beach. Other groups crying out for investigation were simply given a
pass by the IRS, an arm of the government people fear on a good day.

“When people fear the government, there is tyranny. When
the government fears the people, there is liberty.” – Thomas Jefferson

Even US Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY), a loyal Obama supporter
and member of the House Ways and Means Committee, expressed his disgust with
the IRS. Having his own tax evasion issues, Rangel said he was offended by the
behavior of the IRS.

Replete with more “I don’t know” responses than Jeff
Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High,
and more claims of knowing nothing to make Sergeant Schultz of Hogan’s Heroes look like a Phi Beta
Kappa, those who testified before the House Ways and Means Committee as well as
the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee took poor counsel from the
pettifoggers advising them, making them look even more guilty, if that is at
all possible.

Miller, Lerner, and Shulman offered denials and took the
Fifth Amendment with derisive sneers and arrogance as though they had no
responsibility in these scandals. They should not be allowed to behave this
way. Are ordinary American citizens and organizations allowed to shun an IRS
audit? Are they allowed to not know things? Are they allowed to take the Fifth?
No, no, and no. Clearly there is yet another double standard in play here.

Keep them in their seats to testify the truth. Barring
that, cite them with Contempt of Congress. There have been some take charge
members on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, namely US Rep.
Trey Goudy (R-SC) who reminded the committee that witnesses can’t have it both
ways – provide statements to defend themselves, but then refuse to answer
questions from the members.

No one knew anything. No one did anything wrong. No one
knew anyone who knew anything. No one knew anyone who did anything wrong. Yet,
Obama himself said, “Let’s ensure this doesn’t happen again.”

I don’t want to say heads should roll for fear of being
called Islamophobic, especially with this administration, but not only do
people need to be fired, I support what House Speaker John Boehner asked. “My
question isn’t who’s going to resign… my question is who’s going to jail.” In
addition to jail, since the buck really does stop with Barack Obama, he should
be out of a job, and we the American people should not have to wait until January
20, 2017.

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Admittedly not a big fan of Middle Eastern cuisine, I
recently enjoyed, not one, not two, but three good meals at good prices at
Aladdin Pita in Merrillville, IN, at the behest of my girlfriend, who had dined
there frequently in the past.

I will share a secret initially shared with me upon my
first foray into Aladdin Pita’s menu – there is a daily lunch special not found
on said menu. For six bucks patrons can enjoys a dinner’s worth of food for
lunch.

Having eaten this lunch special three times, I can attest
that it is enjoyable, filling, and mostly consistent. Seated in a dimly lit
restaurant in a non-descript strip mall-ette of fewer than a half dozen
forgettable stores, the low key wait staff brings small dishes of humus, baba
ghanoush, and a cucumber, tomato, cilantro combo, along with fresh baked pita
bread. While the pita is freely replenished, don’t eat the contents of the
small dishes too quickly as extra costs a buck a dish.

While eating the appetizers, the lentil soup arrives –
thick – almost a pea soup consistency, but yellow in hue with a slice of lemon
accompanying. Never one for lentil soup, this is quite savory, and for a cup,
leaves one wanting more.

The entrees should have been, and were, served in a reasonable
amount of time as in each visit, Aladdin Pita was sparsely filled.

Surrounding a mound of yellow seasoned basmati rice are a
delightfully spiced shredded beef – called shwarma, chunks of seasoned kabab chicken,
two link sausage-shaped pieces of lamb – called keftah, some more of the
cucumber salad, served with a tiny ramekin-shaped dish of tasty tahini, and a
falafel ball atop the rice.

In two of three visits, leftovers were brought home. In
all cases the beef was excellent and the lamb was consistently good. The
chicken was dry in two of three cases and overcooked in the third.

If the regular menu is anything like the lunch special, I
am confident there will be something for just about everyone. From vegetarian
dishes to sandwiches to salads to kababs the menu is rich with ethnic
specialties and numerous options.

Service is consistent and steady, but not personable.

Attached to Aladdin Pita is the restaurant’s store featuring
even more ethnic options any fan of Middle Eastern cuisine will enjoy.

Monday, May 6, 2013

Kermit Gosnell, licensed murderer of the unborn, deserves
nothing less than to pay for his horrific crimes with his own life. Yet, that
one life will never replace the thousands he snuffed out before they had a
chance to experience their own lives on earth.

Kermit Gosnell has the soul of a Nazi – following the
orders of thousands of women legally authorized to slaughter their own
children, while simultaneously ordering those laboring for him to commit the
same heinous slaughter. Kermit Gosnell is a modern day Jack the Ripper wielding
scalpels and forceps ripping healthy children from the wombs of their mothers.
(These same potential mothers could opt for carrying the child to term and
giving him or her up for adoption. Abortion is not the only option.)

But Kermit Gosnell took his job, his bloody task, beyond the
legal, pole vaulting into the illegal, the torturous, and the genocidal. Isn’t
genocide the appropriate term for the willful slaughter of thousands of
innocents simply for the purpose of extermination? That’s Kermit Gosnell –
genocidal abortionist, on trial for the murder of children born of botched
abortions.

And as testimony revealed, so incompetent in his task,
that Kermit Gosnell ordered those babies born to be killed in such gruesome ways,
finds him firmly ensconced in the hall of fame for evil incarnate. From flushing
live babies down the toilet, to slicing their spinal cords, to simply letting
them lie on a gurney flailing around like a trout out of water until breathless,
Kermit Gosnell demonstrated the medical ethics on par with Josef Mengele.

Kermit Gosnell is the face of evil that, sadly, the
national mainstream media failed to appropriately address and report.

Kermit Gosnell, abortionist, failed to fit the mainstream
media’s cookie cutter mold of clean, safe abortion – if there could actually be
such a thing. The mainstream media, majority pro-choice, want the Kermit
Gosnell case to simply go away – swept under the rug along with the thousands
of dead babies butchered, and in many cases, discovered in Kermit Gosnell’s
freezer – in an effort to return to their nice clean clinics.

One abortion gets little to no attention at any level of
the media – local or national, as one local murder fails to make national news –
it simply happens every day. But when a Columbine, Virginia Tech, or Sandy Hook
occurs, this becomes a national horror – as it should. Likewise, the Kermit
Gosnell case should be cause for a national outcry to stop the slaughter of
innocent children. Taken a step further, in 1861, on the heels of the
inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, slavery was legal in the United States. Legal,
but certainly immoral. In 2013, abortion may be legal, but most certainly is
not moral.

If not the death penalty, as he inflicted upon thousands
of babies, Kermit Gosnell should be remanded to a locked cage for the remainder
of his days where the only sounds he hears are those of crying newborns, a la
Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart.